video/audio sequence glitch in generated DVD

[David Mears]

I'm using WS 1.2 (or maybe 1.3 due to a recently installed patch?). I've created a number of DVDs in the past for TV shows I've copied off air. I have a few additional shows that are currently archived on tape that I'm now starting to copy to DVD as it doesn't look very promising for these shows to come to commercial DVD soon.

I captured the first four episodes from my tape to PC to create the first DVD. Based on past quality levels, I initially captured (more info later) the video at the VBR rate I wanted to use to build the DVD. After capturing all four eps, I used WS to build the DVD with the four eps and a simple menu (plus a "startup" title). After building the DVD and playing it back (initially on the PC), I found a major glitch in the video/audio stream/info. The first three eps played OK (tested a few seconds of each title/chapter for those three eps), but at around 28 min (out of ~43) into the fourth episode, things got screwy.

The video stopped changing and the audio started loudly screaching for about 5 secs or so, and then both video/audio continued playing but now showing the "startup" title and first episode title. The title/chapter/time indicators all appeared as if the fouth ep was still playing at the appropriate place, but the video/audio actually being played was different. I'm not sure (how to tell) if the A/V data was built into the final DVD image wrong, or if the DVD indexing info got confused into pointing at the earlier MPG bits even though it still thought it was playing later bits. (I'm not sure I know what I talking about here, but from viewing commercial DVDs that can show the same video under different title/chapter numbers, I'm guessing there's some kind of index/hash that links title/chapter/timecode to actual MPG data, but it's just a guess.)

After the initial problems, I wondered if using directly captured MPG files might be a contributing factor, so I recaptured the video again at VBR 6000 and used Video Studio to create edited MPG files at the VBR rate I wanted. Rebuilt the DVD again using the edited MPG files and the result still ended up pretty much the same.

As I mentioned above, I've previously created somewhere between 30 and 50 DVD discs of various other shows without running into this kind of problem.

[Devil]

You need to give MUCH more detail as to how you are capturing, your hardware etc.

However, there seems to be an a priori anomaly in what you say, at least if I understand you right. You talk about 4 episodes per DVD, each 43 minutes long, ie nearly 3 hours at an encoded rate of 6000 kbit/s (max or average?) VBR. Assuming you are encoding the audio AC3 (Dolby) at 192 kbit/s, your average video bitrate should be about 3000 kbit/s or a tad under (less if you use other audio encoding).

I don't know what the old version of WS does in the way of security when burning, but it may simply be that you are trying to put too much on a single disk.

Otherwise, could it be that the tape of that particular clip has a fault and may need timebase correction or similar. This may not show up when playing the tape but may upset the capture/encoding process. This happens quite frequently.

[sjj1805]

Something else to be considered is the Discs.

1. What burn speed are you using?
I have a 16x burner and use 8x discs. However burning faster than 4x produces unreliable results where a disc will
play correctly in some standalone players
play incorrectly in others
Refuse to play at all in yet others.

2. Faulty disc.
I purchase mine in bulk - about 500 at a time. You do get a few dud ones every now and again.

To eliminate this as a possible reason for your problem try burning to a Hard Drive folder first and then playing it with your favourite software.

[David Mears]

Something else to be considered is the Discs.

1. What burn speed are you using?
I have a 16x burner and use 8x discs. However burning faster than 4x produces unreliable results where a disc will
play correctly in some standalone players
play incorrectly in others
Refuse to play at all in yet others.

Right now my +R discs are 8X. The first failed disc was one of those. Since then, I've been testing new burns by using a 2.4X +RW disc (so I don't have to toss new attempts that fail) that I've used many times successfully before.

Plus, when I insert a blank 8X +R disc, DVD-WS only gives me the option of burning at 8X. (Actually, the pulldown menu contains two entries: "MAX" and "8X". I just always use "MAX" as the default.)

2. Faulty disc.
I purchase mine in bulk - about 500 at a time. You do get a few dud ones every now and again.

I have had a fair number of +R discs that failed to burn completely, or failed to play correctly after burning. Maybe as many as 20% in the worst cases. These have ranged from the first discs I bought which were 2.4X, to 4X to the latest 8X. However, none of those failures ever showed this behavior, of playing the wrong material from the disc after a certain point.

To eliminate this as a possible reason for your problem try burning to a Hard Drive folder first and then playing it with your favourite software.

No software seems to know how to "play" the ISO file created by DVD-WS (not terribly surprising). I've never asked WS to build only the _TS dirs and see if any players would play from there. Is that what would be needed to do this?

I also have an additional piece of information, which is not very surprising, considering. This morning, I swapped eps three and four within the edit list, so they became titles 5 and 4 respectively, and then rebuilt the DVD image again. Testing that showed the behavior I was expecting would occur -- the same problem exists though now on episode 3 instead of 4 (i.e. the problem always seems to be in whatever is title 5).

I still wonder why this has only occurred this time and not any of the other dozens of DVDs I've cut together using the same basic approach in the past.

[David Mears]

You need to give MUCH more detail as to how you are capturing, your hardware etc.

Per my user data, I have an ATI capture card (7500, I *think*).

However, there seems to be an a priori anomaly in what you say, at least if I understand you right. You talk about 4 episodes per DVD, each 43 minutes long, ie nearly 3 hours at an encoded rate of 6000 kbit/s (max or average?) VBR. Assuming you are encoding the audio AC3 (Dolby) at 192 kbit/s, your average video bitrate should be about 3000 kbit/s or a tad under (less if you use other audio encoding).

Sorry if I wasn't clear enough here. My final bitrate is VBR 3400, which allows this amount of meterial on a 4.7GB disc. The quality is not great, but is passable, especially considering the quality of the original material on tape. After trying first with the directly captured video, I changed to try capturing at VBR 6000 and then editing down to VBR 3400 (as the MPGs gen'ed by VS might have made a difference compared to those captured by the HW).

I don't know what the old version of WS does in the way of security when burning, but it may simply be that you are trying to put too much on a single disk.

It will tell you if you have too much data to fit on the disc. I've experienced this a number of times when the built image is just over 4,700,000,000 bits long.

Otherwise, could it be that the tape of that particular clip has a fault and may need timebase correction or similar. This may not show up when playing the tape but may upset the capture/encoding process. This happens quite frequently.

I'm not discounting problems in the source material. However, as per my latest experiment, switching the last two episodes in the title list only switched which one showed the error (always title 5).

[sjj1805]

Instead of creating an image file burn to hard drive folders and create
Audio_TS
Video_TS folders.

There is plenty of software available that enables you to view a DVD on your computer.
There is one in our link to free stuff
http://phpbb.ulead.com.tw/EN/viewtopic.php?t=12931

Ulead DVD Player 2.0 that comes with DMF4
WinDVD 7 which comes with DMF5
InterVideo® WinDVD® Player which comes with VS10

Then you have several that can be purchased such as
PowerDVD
Nero Showtime
Roxio Player

Just do a google search.

[David Mears]

Instead of creating an image file burn to hard drive folders and create
Audio_TS
Video_TS folders.

There is plenty of software available that enables you to view a DVD on your computer . . . such as PowerDVD

I already had PowerDVD on my system. I couldn't find a way to have it play the whole set of files as if it were a single entity (DVD), but I could specify each VOB file. The VOB files played OK separately, but I was able to determine that the error in the ISO file exists at a point partway through the 5th VOB file. (FWIW, it appears the VOB file boundaries don't match the title boundaries, but ....)

I did notice one additional thing, that I'm suspicious is somehow related. In addition to the created disc image file EFC_1_1.iso, there's also a little file next to it (with the same mod time) called EFC_1_1.iso.adp. I've never seen such a file before.

JIC there's a connection, I defragged my disc last night but haven't had time yet to try to rebuild a new ISO file again afterward.

[GeorgeW]

What version of PowerDVD do you have?

I have an old version 4XP, which allows me to open up the VIDEO_TS.IFO file -- this plays the DVD with all the menus...

Regards,
George

[David Mears]

What version of PowerDVD do you have?

I have an old version 4XP, which allows me to open up the VIDEO_TS.IFO file -- this plays the DVD with all the menus...

Regards,
George

I checked and I have PowerDVD 3.0 (it came installed on the PC when I bought it).

Here is a further update...

I ran a defrag on my drive, in case that might have been a contributing cause to the issue. I removed the old .iso file (and a few others from the Capture directory) and then tried once again to rebuild the DVD image. When that completed, I found not only did EFC_1_1.iso file get built, but also a file called EFC_1_1.iso.adp and a file called _difc.chk, which claims to be "file fragments found." Both of these "additional" files were created as part of creating the ISO file; I've not seen this occur in the past when I was not having my current problem.

In particular, the presense of _difc.chk sounds bad for the process; it certainly gives me the impression that the ISO file itself was created in a corrupted condition. Any ideas what the .iso.adp file would be, or why this .chk file would be getting built?

[Helge]

As I found the quality of dvds is not equal from start to end. Very often the first 70 % are good and the last 20 % bad. This could explain why allways your last eps are bad. So if any of your dvd drives is supported by cdspeed I would recoment you to do a disk quality test of your burned disks. Maybe that it makes

[David Mears]

Thought I'd give a quick update on what I've found; the prognosis is not good.

I created a new project for a second TV show and captured video for that off my tapes. After putting everything together for that material, the resulting DVD image had exactly the same problem as with the first show, and in pretty much the same position within the DVD. I don't think the problems are likely caused by the video material itself or by a bad hard drive, since multiple captured MPG video and multiple created DVD image files (thus at different places on the HD) exhibit almost identical problems (as well as having done a disc defrag while trying to diagnose the problem with the first show).

I first bought Video Studio 6 and Workshop 1.2 a few years back (by download) and they worked relatively well. This past Christmas I decided it was time to upgrade VS (since VS6 was out of support) and l first tried a Trial version of VS9, but never could get it to install. I went ahead and bought VS9 anyway (box rather than download this time) and that installed and worked OK. The first time I tried WS again after that, though, I started getting program aborts when trying to create a DVD. At that time, ULead Support had me uninstall and reinstall WS along with a couple new patches. That seemed to fix the abort problem, but then I ran into this DVD image glitch problem.

Since I'd not had these problems (DVD image glitch) with my original WS1.2 code, I tried "going back" to see if it was the new patches that impacted things. So I uninstalled WS once again (according to the instructions from ULead Support) and reinstalled version 1.2 from my original download bits. This time, I did not install the added two patches, hoping my original 1.2 code would work again as it did before. Unfortunately, the 1.2 code by itself without the 1.3 patch aborts during the Multiplex Video/Audio step 4/5 (I'm not sure if it's in the same place as the original abort problem above or not, though I don't think so), so I can only guess that all the installs, uninstalls and reinstalls (and whatnot) have somehow left code fragments around that just don't work well together. Or perhaps VS9 and WS1.[23] have compatibility problems (I don't know if perhaps there are shared libraries between the two) or something.

At this point, I now wonder if my only hope of getting WorkShop to work again is to consider upgrading to WS 2 (or WS Express?). If I go that route, does anyone have any personal information/recommendations (beyond ULead's comparison charts) in choosing between WorkShop 2 and WorkShop Express? I don't do a lot of fancy stuff constructing my DVDs (since WS1.2 was plenty sufficient) but I don't want to use price alone as criteria if it does make sense to go to full WS2.

[sjj1805]

To get it all working again view our re-installation procedure.

[David Mears]

To get it all working again view our re-installation procedure.

Thanks for the pointers. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to help.

I removed everything i could find from all the Temp (and various user) folders mentioned, I removed DVD-WS, I removed VideoStudio9 (and the Cool3D code that came with it) in case there was some kind of interaction problem, I even ran chkdsk \r as suggested - it ran for an hour or so, and didn't report anything serious. After all that, I re-installed DVD-WS 1.2 without reinstalling VS9 (the configuration that had been working for me at one time) and it still aborts during the A/V multiplexing stage. Though I didn't try it, I have no confidence that installing the 1.3 patch to fix the abort problem will work any better for the glitch problem coming back as well.

I just can't seem to find the magic to get things to work again. I find this (and PCs in general) very frustrating.

[sjj1805]

........... I even ran chkdsk \r as suggested - it ran for an hour or so, and didn't report anything serious. .........

So what did it find?

[David Mears]

........... I even ran chkdsk \r as suggested - it ran for an hour or so, and didn't report anything serious. .........

So what did it find?

Here's what I think is the heart of the report (I can list the rest if needed):

Cleaning up minor inconsistencies on the drive.
Cleaning up 31 unused index entries from index $SII of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 31 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9.
Cleaning up 31 unused security descriptors.
CHKDSK is verifying file data (stage 4 of 5)...
File data verification completed.
CHKDSK is verifying free space (stage 5 of 5)...
Free space verification is complete.